Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-10-07
FRIDAY, OCTOBER I, 1887.

keep their readers from coming to
California, the San Francisco Alta has
this among other things to say:
The foci of land speculation, where
prices are inflated hopelessly beyond
the productive power of the soil. are
few and small in area. Compared to
the whole State they are like the
pleaides upon the expansive sky, and
considered separately, even then, one
star differeth from another star in
glory. By this we mean that in
Southern California the value OF To-
cation is not always fixed by the pro-
ductive capacity of its soil, but
by the clemency and constancy
0f it's climate. Given, man in
Springfield, Ohio, who has consumed
one lung in making one million Of dol
lars; add place in Southern Califor-
nia where the climate is 80 kindly
that his one lung is as good as two in
Ohio. and he will to his living lung
sacrifice share of the million which
his dead lung earned. All that part
Of California is the lung of the strick-
en- East. Men go there not to buy
land, but to buy lungs. All that
man hath he will give for his life, and
We have long been convinced that that
mart of this State is to attract not only
the transient travel of the world
which seeks escape from austere win
ters, but an enormous permanent pop
ulafion of the rich who have every
thing in the world except prospect
Of length of DAYS. The boom may
burst. but the climate won't. Nature
rms q bank that never breaks, and
she is in business down there, hence
the boom. 1t may check, it may slip
back, but it will gather force again.
If YOU don't believe it, look at the
jealousy Of Florida and listen to the
Rnashing of teeth along the Riviera.
Now. who is doing it? Who inn
uorted the land auction, townsite,
ereat-expectations habit? 1t came
Xom the East. When Indiana, Ohio,
Illinois and Iowa were new, just
opened to settlement, the speculative
landowners came from the older States
and bought town lots by the map.
The voice of the auctioneer has cried
ssthe third and last call" from the
Ohio river to the Missouri, to audien-
ces of speculators. The Champion
speaks of the prosperous cities OF that
country, and we thank it. for those
cities and their suburban districts
have been sold over and over again,
inst as cities and suburbs are being
oold to-day in the booming localities
of California. Ii they are prosperous,
after being SO long played as cards in
a gamble, our California pasteboards
need not mourn as those without hope.
Now. passing out OF that section Of
this State to which thousands resort
in search of their long-lost lung, how
isit? The first place we strike is the
Kern county desert, made fruitful by
irrigation. Here we find a man who
paid $1,000 for 100 acres OF land irrl-
gated. He put it Immediately into
alfalfa, and the first crop paid him
$500, or return in one year exceed
ing the cost of the land by $500.
There is another man who hetted
$4,000 on one years crop of sweet po-
tatoes on twenty acres Of land. This
is q desert, but it is full OF rich men
who went there looking like the ga
berlunzie men who tramp the heaths
of Scotland. Come on up to Tulare.
We suppose Mr.. Pixley will admit
that an Ohio man can do
something in Tulare. Fresno, Merced
and Stanislaus and San Joaquin coun-
ties coming next, are not booming,
but there is not an acre OF arabic land
in any of them that will not pay its
first cost with the net profits OF its
first years crop.
The attack was made on the ground
that there was wild land speculation
in California lands, and the San
Francisco paper maintains that even
If there is, speculation in land is the
safest kind of speculation, for in case
Of y collapse, there is always some
thing useful left. In one respect our
contemporary does not fully cover the
ground. Here in Los Angeles, while
the climate is prime factor in our
prosperity, it is not the only one. We
can show Just as big results In our
alfalfa fields as any county. And
these select spots, where the men
vith one lung most do congregate are
the very spots where the orange,
lennon and other delicate fruits grow
to greatest perfection. Thus, while
x1,e one lung does the work OF two. the
. .cre of land on which the invalid
}dwells will yield him net profit Of
$500 per annum if he has seventy-iive
eood orange trees on it, and he takes
rood care Of them.